Blog
7 tips for leveraging the thinking diversity in your team
It’s wonderful being in flow with a group of colleagues. You say something and everyone gets it. Someone else makes a suggestion, and you can immediately support and build on what’s been said. Affirming… Energising… Magic… Not so fast! Research* has shown that while...
Exec Coaching- 3 Reasons Why You Would
Why would you want executive coaching? I am quite often asked, ‘what causes people to want coaching?’ It’s a great question! While there are as many reasons for coaching as there are coaching clients, broadly speaking there are three key drivers behind a leader...
How to deal with your biggest leadership weakness
What are 'leadership derailers'? Are you suffering from one? My keynote on "The 12 Leadership Derailers: How to avoid archetypes that sabotage careers" (based my my book 'Developing Direct Reports') generates some fabulous conversations! Derailers are leadership...
Are you the projector or the screen?
How conscious are you of what’s your stuff, and what belongs to others? More often than we realise, we project our desires, hopes, fears, personalities and insecurities onto other people. To make things even trickier, they are simultaneously projecting onto us! If you...
The Three Thinking Approaches that Govern a Restructure Conversation
The leadership team’s conversation about the way forward to restructure the company was beginning to circle. It was not an easy conversation! As the frustration built, I could see that there was tension around the potential loss each person perceived, as well as an...
Tried it once – it didn’t work!
What do you mean, you tried it once and it didn’t work? Why should it work the first time for you when others have worked for weeks, months, years and even decades just to refine their skills and make it look easy? We seem comfortable to accept that learning...
8 Decades of Wisdom in 6 Lessons
My father just turned 80. This was a big surprise to me! Not that it was his birthday… Nor really that he was 80… What surprised me was that at 80 he could be referred to as ‘elderly’! Elderly? My father? The man I see out working on the farm most days? I don’t think...
One Challenge CEOs Face (and 5 contributing factors)
What is one of the most common challenges CEOs ask me about? ‘My biggest challenge is to get my executive team working better together. I get involved in too many things that they should be sorting out between them.’ The top team are all adults, right? So why is the...
New Research: What Creates a Toxic Culture
Toxic culture – we know what it feels like, but do we know what causes it? New research published by MITSloan Management Review* (March 2022) has identified the elements that move people beyond dissatisfaction and translate into employee attrition. ‘The Toxic Five...
Feedback I Was Embarrassed (and Grateful) to Receive
Recently I was given feedback that I was grateful to receive. It went something like this: ‘I loved the Fearless Conversations workshop and took a lot from it. And I noticed something that I thought you might want to know…. My partner is East African and if he had...